But Reuters reports that the increasing Nokia Lumia Windows Phone buzz is met with icy disdain across the pond in the UK. One of Europe's top markets, UK carriers appear to be giving up on Nokia's Lumia, after hardly giving it a chance to shine.

An executive at a European telecom who had been selling the Lumia 710 and 800complained, "No one comes into the store and asks for a Windows phone. Nokia have given themselves a double challenge: to restore their credibility in terms of making hardware smartphones and succeed with the Microsoft Windows operating system, which lags in the market."

The executive is quoted as praising Windows Phone for its "tons of cool" features, but then throws the OS under the bus, stating, "If the Lumia with the same hardware came with Android in it and not Windows, it would be much easier to sell."

The curious thing with the European carriers is that they claim to be frustrated with Google Inc.'s (GOOG) Android legion and with the pricey iPhone from Apple, Inc. (AAPL) -- a device that may never turn a profit for carriers. But when it comes to selling the Lumia's Reuters reports that the carriers are making hardly any effort. Nokia's Windows Phones are tucked away in unseen corners and clerks peddle Apple iPhones and Samsung Electronics Comp., Ltd. (KS:005930) Galaxy phones on smartphone shoppers.

It's a tale of two continents. In Europe, carriers are still eagerly ponying up the 600 to 700 euros (~$800 to $900 USD) to sell iPhones to customers, despite the fact that they may never turn a profit on the device. Even Samsung phones are fetching an impressive 300 to 500 euros (~$400 and $650 USD) from the EU carriers.

Meanwhile, U.S. carriers appear to be adopting a different philosophy. Encouraged by discounted handsets from Nokia and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), the carriers are finally giving the platform a chance and pitching it to customers. AT&T reports strong sales of the Lumia 900 LTE, which is prominently featured in nearly every U.S. store. T-Mobile USA -- a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG (ETR:DTE) reported that the Lumia 710, an entry-level Nokia Windows Phone, as among its most popular handsets.

II. Some Say Lower the Price; Others Say It's Hopeless

Richard Windsor, global technology specialist at investment bank Nomura predicted Nokia Lumia phones to take in 300 Euros on average. Their actual haul is about 220 euros on average. Yet, carriers seem to have no interest in these bargain devices in Europe and aren't even trying to sell them to customers.

The carriers seem to contradict each other. One executive is quoted as saying, "If they could lower the price we think they could sell more. It might be worth making it a bit of a loss leader to get it out of the door. It's not rocket science."

Another suggests that price is not enough. They state, "We can open our stores to them and train our staff to sell the phones, but that's it. Ultimately, Nokia and Windows are challengers and they either need to come to market with a really disruptive, innovative product or a huge marketing budget to create client demand. So far they have done neither."

The perplexing situation has to be particular frustrating for Nokia who is seeing accelerating U.S. sales, but has been largely scorned in its home continent. If there's one thing illustrated by all the European criticism surrounding the Lumias, it's that while EU carriers may complain about Apple and Samsung's profit-seeking, they really don't mind all that much or have much desire to seek out and promote alternative options.

So, how many MORE years are we supposed to wait for it to BE competitive? Remember when "Mango" was supposed to cure all of the platform's ills? Remember when the Lumia would be the "savior" of the WP7 ecosystem? Now they are saying the "Real" Windows Phones will be the ones shipping this fall! My God! I have NEVER heard as many excuses and cries for their supposedly "loyal" customers to just hold on and wait...and then wait again...and wait some more! Oh, wait, yes I have...it was when Palm and HP kept dangling updates in front of me when I owned a Pre! And we all know how THAT turned out! I expect Microsoft and Nokia to do no better.

well, crapdroid was utter crap first years of its miserable life and iPhone was also a laughing stock for many in 2007 and 2008, so harping on WP7 in its first two years of life won't help much, all mobile OSes went through this stage of early crappiness, now cry me some more :))

quote: well, crapdroid was utter crap first years of its miserable life and iPhone was also a laughing stock for many in 2007 and 2008, so harping on WP7 in its first two years of life won't help much, all mobile OSes went through this stage of early crappiness, now cry me some more :))

But crapness is relative. It's how much less crappy the iPhone, then Android, was compared to the truly awful Win Mobile offering at the time. iPhone, then Android, made Microsoft phones look archaic and it's taken them waaay too long to try to get back in the game with a serious offering. Coming from so far behind being just good is not good enough, Microsoft has to produce something that leapfrogs the competition, which their current offerings don't, and I can't see them doing that (maybe they will surprise).

What's even more shocking is that it is two years (two years!!) since the iPad was released and Microsoft won't have a serious tablet in play in the market until the autumn. Ballmer really should resign.

By the way if you want to read an incredibly lengthy and but very knowledgable series of anti-Stephen Elop rants by an ex-Nokia exec visit "Communities Dominate Brands".

quote: iPhone, then Android, made Microsoft phones look archaic and it's taken them waaay too long to try to get back in the game with a serious offering. Coming from so far behind being just good is not good enough, Microsoft has to produce something that leapfrogs the competition, which their current offerings don't, and I can't see them doing that (maybe they will surprise).

Tony said something I agree with and have been saying myself. This shatters my entire world view. My brain....my brain is now broken.

Consider nearly every Android device I have ever owned, 5 so far, has had a limited life span on upgrading the OS. Now consider Every Single Windows Phone will be able to Upgrade to Windows Phone 8 OS without having to buy a new device.

That just made every Android device I ever bought a waste of money while the Windows Phone device will get an extended life when Windows 8 comes along.

This move by Microsoft is why they will win a lot of people tired of having to refresh good hardware just to get the new OS.

quote: Consider nearly every Android device I have ever owned, 5 so far, has had a limited life span on upgrading the OS. Now consider Every Single Windows Phone will be able to Upgrade to Windows Phone 8 OS without having to buy a new device.

Possibly, it doesn't bode well anyway. Also, no upgrade path could also mean that you can't upgrade, but have to install from scratch. Microsoft has to give us more details before we know for sure.

I would think that this leans toward us current users are out of luck. If I were Microsoft and we weren't going to let old phones be upgraded, then I'd keep it as secret as possible till the last minute so people keep buying the old phones. However, it you could upgrade your old phone, I'd be publishing that data out to the users so people would buy current phones with hope to upgrade. Since Microsoft is being secret, the leans toward the former scenario.

Are you still using a phone from 4 or 6 years ago that you rely on updates for? I doubt it. People keep their phones for two years, sometimes less. Very soon the landscape for Android will be completely changed. Right now they are in a transition, it's not perfect I'll grant you. But mostly this is fodder for fanbois. You paint the picture of millions of people desperately waiting for updates clinging to a broken phone, that's just not the way things are.

quote: That just made every Android device I ever bought a waste of money while the Windows Phone device will get an extended life when Windows 8 comes along.

Since you've been a hardcore anti-Android minion trolling me for days, I won't even bother trying to figure out how every Android device has been a "waste" of money because they might not get LIFETIME updates. And Windows Phones aren't. The "lifetime" of a smartphone is two years. You won't be still using a Lumia 900 4 years from now and you goddamn well know it.

quote: This move by Microsoft is why they will win a lot of people tired of having to refresh good hardware just to get the new OS.

Those people either don't exist, or are in such a crazy minority as to not matter. Perfect for boosting MS sales!

You really believe the majority at-large smartphone consumer puts software updates as any kind of priority or value metric? Please post me a poll or survey backing your position up.

850,000 Android devices are activated monthly in the US alone. Yeah you're right, SO many people are concerned about software updates.

I do not understand why people buy a phone thinking they are entitled to everything new that comes out. When you buy a phone, buy it for what it has, or don't buy it! Do some research, don't listen to the idiots in the store, and figure out what will work for you.

If you want to stay up on the latest O/S, either buy a new phone that has extra power and should be able to handle it (hint: not the free and under ~100 phones). If you buy the low priced phones, they are either old (12-18 months is old for such quickly evolving tech) or they were crap to begin with.

quote: Microsoft has to produce something that leapfrogs the competition, which their current offerings don't

According to Jason Mick and many other reviewers WP7 already has best overall experience for an average/novice smartphone user, and that's just the first lame half-baked attempt at building new MS mobile platform. If WP7 did so great one can only imagine how well WP8 will do on the market.

Even the situation with apps is not what Reclaimer and other crapdroid fanboys claim to be. After just two days of owning my HTC Titan I already found a nice WP7 exclusive called Tentacles that many iPhone users long for (hopefully these lamers won't ever get it, hehehe :) and this was without doing anything special, I just got a few random games and then holy smokes - I can't believe they made such ubercool games for WP7 already, I expected MUCH less after reading all the trolls/reclaimers whinig about lack of apps on WP7.

So my personal experience with WP7 is in line with Mick's, not with yours or Reclaimer's. All positives and no negatives for now. I can see MS grabbing more market share when they release WP8 if the hardware specs will be on par with iOS and crapdroid high-end devices. Yeah, that's a big "if", I know, but still I stay cautiously optimistic. Marketplace grew to 80,000 apps already and keeps growing quickly, Viber for WP7 is on the way, Trapster just got released for WP7 as I'm typing this, and almost all major apps I needed are already in the platform like ebay or Amazon, and losers like Pandora are already served by dozens of clone apps made by smarter/quicker developers who are in to grab a quick buck while Pandora and similar losers procrastinate.

Jeez, I already wasted like 80 bucks on so many apps and games, all in just two weeks of owning a WP7 device, it's that easy to get stuff and most of it is very decent quality, and some like Tentacles are even pwning poor iUsers (and there are other nice WP7 exclusives too, like Chickens Can't Fly ).

Good times, Tony, good times. I understand your scepticism about Windows everything, you are an Apple zealot and you are supposed to be this sceptical, status and all, but still - good times Tony, good times definitely :)))

Interesting though it is to get people's personal positive responses to using WP7 or to read arguments about it's inherent merits the key issue is can Microsoft get traction in the market against two very big, growing and rapidly evolving established players? It might be possible but I think it's a tough proposition. For the incumbents to be passed or even caught probably requires pulling far ahead of the competition in some crucial feature or set of features, and even that is not a guarantee of success.

quote: According to Jason Mick and many other reviewers WP7 already has best overall experience for an average/novice smartphone user

Oh okay Jason Mick, who sounds like he was paid off, and a few other reviewers. I guess it's cased closed then, that's certainly not a myopic sampling at all.

Also how does the fact that you found a cool game called Tentacles discount every point? I don't recall saying "WP7 has no cool games".

quote: I can see MS grabbing more market share when they release WP8 if the hardware specs will be on par with iOS and crapdroid high-end devices.

Thought the hardware didn't matter? That's what all of you are saying. So why even have Apollo? WP doesn't need all that stuff, right!?

Pirks are you 12? You write like Windows Phone 7 offered you some candy if you just got in it's creepy van and let it touch you, it's the best! Tentacles and OMG you just spent 80 bucks on apps, so it's the best!

You were a troll when you posted as a rabbit Apple fan proclaiming all things Apple were the best, and you're a troll today. Nothing has changed except what side you're on.

Don't be an idiot, Reclaimer, if I pwned a few WinPC trolls like Motoman this doesn't mean I'm an Apple fanboy. You don't have to be a fanboy to pwn an idiot spewing BS about evil Apple religion Motoman-style.

I mean hardware means a lot for spec-fappers like yourself but common folk doesn't pay attention to specs as much as fappers do. Almost no one orgasms from a quad core phone like you do.

I understand that crapdroid is stronger for spec fappers 'cause it has the magic quad core shit, but my point is that you can start from bottom and try to sell lower specs first and pay attention to great UI instead. This is what MS does, and it may work out. Google approach of specs first everything else second is lame. It allows for market share but you know what kind of profits they get from crapdroid, don't you? Compared to Apple this is less then peanuts, and MS wants to go the Apple way because they too want profits, not the profitless market share crapdroid-style

Oh please! Don't make me dig into your posting record and find proof. You were a complete Apple fanboi troll! They were the best, all non-believers were wrong, bla bla bla.

Spec-fapper? Okay whatever that is. My tablet is a $200 Kindle Fire, my phone is a year old. My PC is a Core2Duo machine that I built and have extensively upgraded through the years, but it's old as crap. My car is a 12 year old Impreza. Yeeeah, CLEARLY I run out and buy the newest thing all the time for specs!

quote: Google approach of specs first everything else second is lame.

Very mature and detailed analysis Pirks. I would like to read more, do you have a website or newsletter I can subscribe to?

I would also like to forward this to Google. As a maker of an OS, NOT PHONES, I'm sure they would be very interested to know their "specs first" approach is wrong....

quote: Compared to Apple this is less then peanuts, and MS wants to go the Apple way because they too want profits, not the profitless market share crapdroid-style

Uhhh did you see the article here on Google's profits? They're doing quite well. Google is different than Apple and MS's approach in that they aren't reliant on the phones being profitable. They rely on add revenue from core services, which their phones promote the use of.

It must be said, Reclaimer. Whenever a Windows Phone article pops up you're the first to jump in and comment. Anyone would think you have a fascination for the platform. Perhaps you should give it a go, and I don't mean spend 5 minutes in a store fiddling with one. Spend a few weeks or a month with one. You won't regret it.

Yeah sure gaining market share by giving out your work for free like Google does is definitely going to bring huge profits eh? Time to wake up Reclaimer. Pathetic profits from Android showed everyone what it is really, and MS I'm sure knew all this a long time ago. They are still laughing looking at how Google spends billions on crapdroid and gets nothing :)))

Palm is one of those companies which died because the company that adopted them didn't know what to do with their property.

The trick with technology is to be patient. Don't buy first generation anything. Give it time to mature and often become cheaper and more efficient.

MS's new phones are decent. I have a few complaints, but I hear my roommate complain about his iPhone. I had a coworker who bought an Android the month it came out only to sell it a few months later because it was junk (he paid $1,000 for it... which was nuts, imo).

Okay please, what Android phone costs $1,000 first off? If you're going to make wild claims that a $1k Android phone is "junk", I think you need to be more honest and quantify that. I've never heard of ANY phone costing that much anyway, so whatever. The Samsung Note is like $600 tops! If there is more expensive Android phone out there, I'm not aware of it. Even my Galaxy S II when it came out was way less than $1k.

That was in early 2009 that he bought that phone. It wasn't subsidized because he's a foreigner and he had to pay the full price up front. Early adopters often have to pay excessive prices to be the first. The first Samsung Tabs I remember going for around $800 (in Korea, which was well before they entered the US).